Saturday 30 July 2011

Free Words!

The always great Maria Savva has interviewed me about The Other Room over on her Goodreads blog.

And what's more, two lucky people who either leave a Comment or Like the interview will receive a free copy of The Other Room. If you lose on the lottery tonight (hopefully not in the Shirley Jackson sense) then you might find the odds somewhat less than a million to one for this give-away,

Check out the interview here, and don't forget to comment.

p.s. if anyone out there wants to check out my Goodreads profile and send me a friend request, feel free...

Thursday 28 July 2011

My Dad, Stephen King, and Me

I'm sure it's very uncool to talk about Stephen King nowadays - the guys been too popular for too long now. There was a brief period when it seemed semi-fashionable in literary circles to praise him as being a 'natural storyteller' or some other patronising drivel, and to mention how he didn't just write horror, oh no. Which he doesn't, obviously; he's written children's books, crime novellas, coming of age stories, and whatever the hell we're supposed to call The Dark Tower series (meta-textual cowboy alternative-reality fantasy?) But liking King only for his non-horror work is a bit like being one of those people who only like Nirvana's acoustic album. Basically, you're missing the point.

But I get too excited about things I like to ever be considered cool, and I've reached an age now when I can cease worrying about that. I doubt my Dad ever seriously worried about it either.

But, if you like books; scratch that, if you love books, you might well find my Dad cool, in his own way. And you'd certain find what was called "the spare room" in my parent's house cool. Because it was full of books. It still is, ever month he seems to find a way to stuff more in. I suspect my Mum likes the fact he's now bought a Kindle purely because it might stop them having to take out a second mortgage just to store all his books. (And I've still got 100+ stored there too, besides the 500+ in my current house. Sorry Mum - one day I will take them away, I promise. And this time, I mean it.)

As a kid and young teenager I wanted to raid my Dad's book collection; rather than stopping me read his 'adult' books, he carefully recommend ones to me. At quite a young age I was reading a lot of his classic sci-fi: Asimov, Clarke and the like. I mean, a lot of it was over my head, but there was no real sex or violence in those books for my dad to worry about. Nothing scary.

But I exhausted those, and kept pestering him for other books, and one day when I was about fifteen he handed me this:

Salem's Lot, 1977


I'm sure not the only person who remember this cover; it certainly made an impression at the time - a stark image with only one small splash of colour, no writing at all, with an embossed face as black as the background it rises up from. What you can't tell from this picture is how the cover changed if you turned it in the light - at one angle the girl's face looked happy, at another blank. Depending on the light, she could look alive or dead. The image above really doesn't do it justice, but I think it's one of the greatest covers I've ever seen.

It is of course Salem's Lot by Stephen King.

I read it in about a day. And then I read Thinner I think (what a one to pick next!) and then Night Shift and then...

What impressed me at the time was how serious the writing seemed. Even writing about something like vampires, he treated them - and more importantly the people of Salem's Lot - seriously. (Not that Asimov & Co. weren't serious writers, I just wasn't at an age to appreciate it then.) It wasn't a dramatic epiphany or anything, just a gradual realisation that books were actually better, and deeper, and more important than even a book obsessed child like me had realised. I'm wary of people describing events as 'life-changing', but that moment when my Dad handed me Salem's Lot certainly seems like one to me. It seems to be the moment something started. To me, it seems like there's a chain of cause and effect from that moment, to the publication of  The Other Room - and teasing you, I know my next book, The Shelter, certainly wouldn't have been written unless I'd discovered Stephen King at an early age...

So that's why Stephen King will always be a bit cool to me. But more importantly, so will my Dad.

Sunday 24 July 2011

In Defence Of Short Stories #11: Dan Holloway


Today's guest blog purports to come from one 'Dan Holloway', although given the sheer scale of literary activity attributed to Dan, I suspect that name is just an alias for a group of say ten or twelve highly talented people working anonymously. How else to explain the following?


    Product Details
  • Dan Holloway wrote one of the best self-published novels I've read: Songs From The Other Side of The Wall (UK | US)
  • More pertinently to this guest blog spot, Dan wrote the short stories and poems in (life) razorblades included (UK | US)
  • He also finds time to be involved in Eight Cuts, editing such works as Penny Goring's The Zoom Zoom (UK | US)
  • And he also wrote The Company of  Fellows, voted in a Blackwells poll their favourite Oxford novel (UK | US). Yes, best ever.
  • And he finds time to read his short stories aloud at such events as Brighton Fringe's Grit Lit, Covent Garden Poetry Cafe's Literature Lounge and Literary Death Match. See here for an example.
  • And more! Dan is publishing a series of episodes of his Black Heart High, the first part of which is behind these here links: UK | US

Dan HollowayI mean c'mon, it's hardly believable that this is all the work of one person, particularly when you take into account the fact 'Dan' has also apparently read every good book ever, and has never once failed to post on an internet forum or message board when the words 'Murakami', 'Oxford comma', or 'self-publishing' have been mentioned. And he is unfailingly enthusiastic, friendly, and genuine with what he posts.

So no, I don't believe in 'Dan Holloway', and was going to reject his In Defence of Short Stories out of hand... but then I read it. Wow. It's called Flash. And you should all read it too.

Take it away, 'Dan'...

Flash

I've been reading James’ defences of short stories for some time now, and I’ve sat at my desk thinking about putting something together, wondering what I could say. It should be easy. I write short stories. Lots of them. And not just short stories but flash fiction too.

That’s it, I thought, before I asked James if I could put something together. Flash fiction. After all, I haven’t seen too many people defend it. It’s still looked upon as a bit of a novelty, a parvenu, not at all the place where an author would have the space to attribute three whole adjectival clauses to a single noun.

The problem is I’ve never really been an apologist. Do. That’s my motto. Don’t think it, live it. And live it again, and keep on living. Just like Katelan said that night when we sat around in button back chairs telling the audience about Lilith, and embracing life so close you choke on it, and her friend Holly, who died in her early twenties but lived more than you or I ever will.

Katelan.

Of course.

It was mid morning. Fuck knows what time o’clock in New York but I called her anyway.

Hey you, she said with all the energy I remembered, and I didn’t feel so bad.
Hey.

So?

So I’m doing this piece about flash fiction.

Yeah?

Yeah, about how cool it is. No, not just that. A defence of it.

A defence of it? she said and I could hear the frown lines. What’s to defend?

Exactly, I said, it seems so obvious.

So obvious you can’t think how to put it, she said, and I just laughed, and there we were laughing down the phone together at how ridiculous it was.

So how come you’re up? I asked.

She told me she’d been on a shoot and I asked her what they’d been shooting and she said she’d spent all day riding the IRT sharing homemade cupcakes with strangers while a friend filmed the thing on his phone and I said that sounded pretty cool and she said yeah it was cool, and then she spent an hour telling me about this guy who was going to propose to his partner only he wasn’t sure and he and Katelan talked it over for so many stops as they ate and her friend filmed and they ate some more and talked some more that he missed his stop and his partner called him and he picked up his phone in the middle of a mouthful and Katelan heard her say fuck you, asshole and the guy laughed and ate more cupcakes and felt so free he rode another ten stops with her while her friend filmed.

I asked her what she was going to do with the shoot and she said her friend was just finishing the film as we spoke and was going to upload it the moment he was done. I asked her if she could send me a link and she said not to worry I was first on the guy’s list when it was ready so I said thanks and she said you still don’t know what to write, do you?

No, I said, and she laughed and I asked her why and she said I’d always been slow on the uptake but not to worry, when I got the point I was always the right one to follow it through. I shrugged and asked her what the piece was called so I could tell people about it. I heard another voice, not hers, a man’s voice and it said, I’m not the one who lived. I’m not the one who lived, I repeated and Katelan’s voice and the man’s voice were laughing at the end of the line and then they weren’t. They weren’t anything. I held the phone to my ear waiting for her to say yeah, or awesome, or goodbye or something but she didn’t, and the next noise was the ping of an incoming e-mail and I held the phone close and mouthed thank you down the line. Thank you, that’s exactly what I needed to say.

Wednesday 20 July 2011

The Psychology of Self Publishing

The inspiration for today's post comes, in an indirect manner, from writer David Gaughran. David has just published a great new book called Let's Get Digital. Confession: I've not read the whole thing, but I have read a lot of David blog posts which form part of this new book. So it definitely gets the Everington stamp of approval.

What's more, the PDF version is available for free from David's blog. If you're at all interested in self-publishing, or have done it already, then this book will give you lots of sensible, practical advice on what to do and lots of rational, coherent reasons why to do it.


This blog post is nothing like that however.

Because I believe that a lot of the time when we decide to do something, even thought we might have the best, most rational and well-thought out reasons for doing so on the surface, we often have other reasons for doing what we do underneath. Ones which might not be completely illogical, but would definitely leave Mr Spock scratching his head... (except he wouldn't do that, as scratching your head when faced with a tricky problem is in itself illogical).

I think there are two psychological reasons why beginning authors have taken to self-publishing so readily. Firstly, I'm sure many writers will relate when I say I go through a mental cycle regarding what they think of my writing - from loopy self-confidence to extreme self-doubt, then back again. Creatively I'm sure this is of benefit; you can't improve your book without finding it's faults, and being blinded by your talents doesn't help with that. But when you have to send your book or stories out into the big bad world, it's easy to get stuck in the self-doubt stage. Or at least that's been the case with me - I know objectively that even great writers have all endured having story after story rejected; that great books have been rejected by publishers after publisher. And so I shouldn't let any individual rejection dent my self-belief in my writing. But it's hard not to get dejected about it sometimes. Hard not to think that the outside world is right, and that each word I write is more pointless than the last.

But hey - with self-publishing, there's a constant and opposing feeling of approval from the outside world. It might be small-scale, it might be false, it might even be MBS - but it's there: the little upward jump in your sales-figures, a good review, someone Tweeting about your book, an email from a honest-to-goodness reader who likes your book. These are things that, let's face it, make you feel good.

Secondly, self-publishing gives you a sense of control. Twelve-months ago I had no idea what I was doing with my writing apart from chucking it around all over the place and hoping it wasn't all chucked back. I could set myself goals, but had no idea if and how I could hit them. But for the next twelve months, I feel like I've got it all mapped out:

  1. Self-publish 'The Shelter', a novella I want to put out as a standalone piece
  2. Keep sending out short stories to small magazines, but regardless of acceptance or rejection, collect some of these together in a second volume as a sequel to 'The Other Room'
  3. Work out what to do with a story called 'Xenophobia', a story which because of its excessive use of footnotes (and footnotes within footnotes) doesn't seem like it would ever work self-published on the current generation of e-readers
See, a plan. And one that seems achievable and totally in my control. It isn't - Amazon could change their business-model tomorrow and the whole shebang comes crashing down - but it feels like it.


A sense of approval and ratification from the outside world, and a strong (if illusionary) feeling of control over your writing career. No wonder self-publishing is so popular.

Saturday 16 July 2011

In Defence Of Short Stories #10:Stuart Jaffe




10 Bits of My BrainThis week's guest blog post is from Stuart Jaffe. Stuart's the author of the short story collection, 10 Bits of My Brain (Smashwords | Kindle | Nook), as well as numerous other short stories, most recently appearing in Bull Spec and the anthology, In An Iron Cage. He is also a co-contributer to the non-fiction book, How To Write Magical Words: A Writer`s Companion. He is a regular contributor to MagicalWords.net, a fantasy writing blog, as well as the co-host of The Eclectic Review - a podcast about science, art, and well, everything. For those who keep count, the latest animal listing is as follows: five cats, one albino corn snake, one Brazilian black tarantula, three aquatic turtles, one tortoise, assorted fish, two lop-eared rabbits, eleven chickens, and a horse. Thankfully, the chickens and the horse do not live inside the house.

And as well as all  that, Stuart's found time to write the tenth guest blog In Defence of Short Stories. Ten already? How time flies when you're defending a literary form.

Take it away Stuart...


There are many wonderful aspects to short stories, many of which have been presented in the previous entries to this series.  So for this post, I thought I'd focus on something that I think is best served in short stories - the power-packed sentence.  Writers of short stories know all about this, but readers may not consciously be aware of it even as it weaves a spell upon them.

Basically, because a writer has limited space to tell a complete story, he must make every word work in his favor.  When writing novels, this is not the case.  It's still important in a novel not to waste words, but the sprawling length of the work allows a writer to meander through a scene, a plot point, a character description, etc.  In a short story, such meandering will quickly bring the writer against the word limits of a publishing venue.  Plus, as an art form, they are called short stories for a reason! To illustrate my point, I'm going to use the opening line to "Bone Magic" - the first story in my ebook collection 10 Bits of My Brain.  I'm using this line because I wrote it, so I can guarantee the analysis I'll present is accurate and not just my hypothesis.  Here's the line:

Bad enough he had to suffer the Lublin ghetto and the Nazis, but dealing with his grandmother made Andrzej Vashem consider the benefits of a bullet through the head.

That first line is packed.  We learn the character's name - Andrzej Vashem; we learn the character's sex - male (not a given for many readers unfamiliar with the name); we learn the time and location -- Lublin ghetto, roughly somewhere between 1939-1941 (not too much later into WWII and the ghettos had been cleared out); we know Andrzej as a grandmother that is a lot to contend with; we know Andrzej suffers, that life is bad (even before we read the word Nazi), and that he is in a foul state of mind (thinking either literally or with morose humor about taking a bullet); we assume he's Jewish since he's in a ghetto and not happy about dealing with Nazis; we also assume he's an adult (mostly due to the tone of the prose).  That's a heck of a lot for one sentence!  But it's also commonplace for the kinds of sentences reader come across in short stories.  Writers are taught to make sentences do more than one thing for a story, but short story writers are slave drivers of their sentences.  We make our sentences multi-task all the time - sometimes to a ridiculous level.

And that, perhaps, is one reason some readers find short stories difficult.  They require a tad more work from the reader.  In a novel, the opening sentence above might have spread out to a paragraph, gently bringing the reader up to speed and preparing her for the journey ahead.  For a short story, the reader is expected to interpret a lot more information in a short space.  If thought about that way, a short story rests somewhere between a novel and a poem.  And like poetry, for those readers willing to push forth into the work, the rewards are tremendous.

Tuesday 12 July 2011

A Scattershot Posting #5

I've been interviewed over at Christopher Bunn's excellent Scribbles & Tunes site - a wide-ranging interview that was actually done in what I pretentiously call my 'Feed The Enemy' period, although I mainly seem to end up talking about Nottingham, Robin Hood, and if in the future the afterlife will consist of having our consciousness downloaded onto Amazon and have those that survive us grade us with their star-rating system.

I've been thinking about Feed The Enemy a bit again these last few days - given it's a story at least in part about the relationship between the press and politicians, how could I not? Although no one on the outside could claim to have fully predicted the News Of The World shit-storm of the last week, the fact that the British tabloid press is in up to its neck in corruption and filth is hardly a surprise to a lot of us. The surprise is that people have finally woken up and cared. And all it took was the exposure of behaviour barely more moral than grave-robbing. Sigh.

I've another story about the press and it's odious little ways, this one more in keeping with my more usual weird horror-ish fiction. It's called 'Public Interest Story' (well it is at the moment - it's another title of mine I don't much care for) and at some point I hope you'll be able to read it. I also hope that it's not a period-piece by then, and that the story is still relevant. Who knows, maybe our scaremongering, warmongering, biased, homophobic, immigrant bashing, scapegoat creating, corrupt, and lying press will have been reformed out of all recognition by a new breed of politicians not afraid to take them on.

**** checks The Daily Mail website ****

Actually, I think I'll be all right for a few years at least.

**** feverishly clears internet history over and over again in a futile attempt to wash out the stink of even seeing the Daily Mail's 'news' ****

Saturday 9 July 2011

In Defence Of Short Stories #9: Fox Hill



Today's In Defence of Short Stories comes courtesy of Fox Hill, who's recently had her first short story "Underside Walk" published in The Edge of Propinquity. She resides in Potomac, Maryland where she is studying to be a librarian. She writes more than she would care to admit, and shares a room with a rather busy cat. She's currently working on her first novel [Boo! - Ed.], and a variety of short fiction [Yay! - Ed.]

Catch up with Fox at her Goodreads Profile page - I have, and can confirm that Fox seems to have both a great taste in books, and the ability to read more books a week than almost anyone I know.

Take it away Fox...


Short stories are a dying art, or at least a dying market. The reasons for this fact are many: the magazines that used to carry them are largely going out of print, the ease of self-publishing is such that many are going towards the novel, short stories often don't hold the same allure as anything long-form as they are less likely to get the big (or even small) screen treatment. The cruel irony of it is that many writers now believe that short stories should only be written as publishing them makes it easier to sell a novel. So why, then, why try to defend short stories? The simple answer: because they're well worth defending

Not every plot needs a novel, or even a novella. Like the short film, or the television miniseries, short stories tell the narrative in a succinct manner that allows for the maximum impact to the gleaned from it. The joke is just short enough to not become tired, the shock is revealed the moment before you would have discovered it for yourself. Extension would ruin the story, and rob it of the precise aspect that gives it strength.

Short stories, in some ways, are far more demanding than anything long form. They require one to second-guess, and examine the plot; what can be cut, should, and whatever remains better be clear. A good short story remains in the mind, and makes one wonder about the circumstances surrounding it. Often, upon finishing a novel, the world closes off in several ways; the story is done. For short stories, however, the world may remain open, for all that was afforded was a simple glimpse of a few possibilities.

Long form projects often explore multiple themes; short stories, by their very nature, can never explore so great a number. The strength of short stories is the depth to which they can convey a smaller number of themes. The brevity, and the hyper-focus that short stories can employ to make their points are both tools lost upon anything long form. A good novel can feel like a revelation, a truly good short story can feel like a punch in the gut.

At the end of the day, it's to be remembered that short stories and long form works are two very different entities. When one is popular, the other tends to be out of style; these fads come and go, and are more a commentary on the culture in which the works are produced than the worth of the mediums themselves.

Thursday 7 July 2011

Cutting Off One Head From The Hydra

No it's got nothing to do with books.

Yes I'm almost certainly preaching to the converted.

And no it doesn't win the war, or even the battle really.

And yes the key figures are still in jobs and no one has been brought to justice.

And no it's not great that it took all that happened in the last few days for the 'great British public' to turn against even one small segment of the scummy tabloid press we have in this country.

And yes the bastards will probably still be in charge at the end of it all.

And no this blog posting isn't a particularly eloquent, intelligent, or even adult response to what has happened.

And yes it's probably just going to rise again in a different form, like a Terminator from the flames but with less humanity. But fuck it, sometimes you're allowed to feel good.



Tuesday 5 July 2011

Meanwhile, At Nowhere...

For a few days I've been meaning to post some links to Iain Rowan's excellent blog More News From Nowhere, but he's been adding new, interesting stuff almost daily for awhile and I've only just had chance to catch up. Here's a Nowhere-News summary:

One. Iain's got a new book out - Ice Age is a collection of his short horror/weird/dark fiction. It includes Lilies which I've mentioned on here before, a cracker of a story that was featured in a Mammoth Best New Horror anthology. I haven't read Ice Age yet, but I'd suspect it would be something readers of The Other Room would also like (Ice Age at Amazon US | UK)

Two. Iain's interviewed Alan Ryker, another author I've mentioned on here. This is all getting a bit incestuous isn't it? But Alan is always interesting when talking about the horror genre, so I do advise you to check it out. Warning, may contain me. I told you it was incestuous.

Three. And finally, Iain's done a great post on the scumbags over at The News Of The World hacking into a dead teenager's mobile. I know some of the readers of this blog are not from the UK, but the behaviour of any part of the worldwide Murdoch empire should be of concern to us all, particularly when it's so unpardonable as this is. To sum up for those who don't know:

Fact 1. The News of The World is already embroiled in multiple phone hacking scandals, to date involving celebrities and politicians.

Fact 2. Now it emerges The News of The World also hacked into missing teenager Milly Dowler, in order to listen to messages from her panic stricken parents and relatives.

Fact 3. The News of The World found that her message box was full up and started deleting the old messages so they could hear new ones. Heartbreakingly, this gave the Dowler family false hope that their daughter was still alive. It also meant they basically deleted evidence from a murder enquiry.

Fact 4. The sub-editor and editor at The News Of The World at the time of this and other phone hacking scandals are friends of the Tory party in general, and David Cameron in particular. In fact Cameron thought one of them was such a great guy he hired him as communication officer.

Fact 5. Despite all this, the current Tory-led government believes that Murdoch and his cronies deserve more control over our press and television, and are falling over themselves to approve mergers and takeovers to facilitate this.

Fact 6. The News Of The World and The Sun and The Times all supported the Tory party at the last election, and undoubtably will at the next one.

Fact 7. It's starting to come to light that The News Of The World may have hacked into even more missing teenagers mobile phones...

If this appals you as much as it does me then see some suggestions of what can be done here.

Sunday 3 July 2011

In Defence Of Short Stories #8: Tim C. Taylor

Tim C. Taylor is all over the short story scene at the moment: publishing his own stories such as No More Than Human, which I've mentioned here before; setting up Greyhart Press (which publishes some great sci-fi and horror short stories); and working with people such as Neil Gaiman on books like Fables From The Fountain.

Let's see what such a chap has to say about short stories shall we? 
Product Details

Take it away Tim...

There's never been a better time to explore the universe of short stories, novelettes and novellas.

Here's a short story for you now:

A man walks into a Costa Coffee and orders a cappuccino grande for £1.65…

Okay, not much of a story yet, but we'll come back to this later.

Slip back a century or so, and a fair chunk of literature was first published in short form within popular periodicals, for example the Sherlock Holmes stories and many of Dickens' novels were initially serialised. Since then, short fiction has had a bad time, until now. Sure, there have been pockets of vitality, such as the American pulp magazines of the 30s and 40s, but short fiction has been fighting a rearguard action for a century, finally beaten back to the last redoubts of niche publishers and for-the-love webzines.

This blog post, and the Scattershot Writing website, is part of that defence. Except we are no longer manning the walls, but have sallied forth and are beginning to reclaim ground lost to the novel.

There's never been a better time to explore the universe of short stories, novelettes and novellas.
A man walks into a Costa Coffee and orders a cappuccino grande for £1.65, a mozzarella, tomato and basil Panini for £3.95… 







Perhaps we'd better pause for a working definition, taken from the SF Writers of America. A short story is up to 7,500 words; then we have novelettes up to 17,500 words. Novellas take us to 40,000 when we pass on to the novel.

Never heard of a novelette before? Only dimly aware of novellas? Well, better get used to them as you'll hear a lot more of them more over the coming years.

Of course, there's more to the definition of short fiction than word count. Short stories tell a story: something happens, characters are transformed, readers are transported to other worlds and experience them through other people's perspective.

Writing short fiction requires great discipline and forces hard choices. Authors often limit the attention on one aspect of the story in order to concentrate on another. For example, secondary characters might be given a cursory treatment because the author concentrates the focus of the story on the main character. Short story authors talk of words like an austerity government might talk of dollars: there is a limited supply and each dollar spent must justify its expense. The shorter the story, the harsher the fiscal discipline.

Crafting short fiction well is hard. Successful novelists talk of how much easier novel writing is because they have much more space to write whatever interests them.

Writing a 130,000 word fantasy novel and love the city setting you've built? Why not add another 3,000 words to describe more of your city? Now you can get in that detail you worked out about the Guild of Sewer Sweepers. 'Three thousand words?' says your agent. 'Heck, add another five thousand about your city and maybe we'll get compared to China Mieville.'

If a 130,000 word novel is like a bottomless cup of Americano, experiencing a good short story is like an espresso: not merely a shorter and more intense experience but something palpably different.

Which reminds me; we were writing a short story about coffee earlier…
A man walks into a Costa Coffee and orders a cappuccino grande for £1.65, a mozzarella, tomato and basil Panini for £3.95, whips out his Kindle and browses his favourite authors online before buying a cracking 7,000 word short story for 70p. Half an hour later, the man has eaten, drunk and read his fill. Which of the three do you think he will still think about tomorrow? Which was the cheapest? 
Well, that man was me this morning and the Costa Coffee outlet was on Silver Street, Bedford. The only fabrication was that the short on the Kindle hasn't been published yet (I can make up details like that because this is a story, though I never claimed it was an exciting one!)

My bad short story points to why good short fiction is fighting back. Anthologies and periodicals never quite went away but with eReaders and iPads, and similar technological paraphernalia, as a reader you can bring your library of short fiction with you, organised by category and author. You can even add the authors you like where and whenever you want and at a bargain price. At long last, short stories, novelettes, and novellas can be produced and consumed on a level playing field with novels. And that is why I say:

There's never been a better time to explore the universe of short stories, novelettes and novellas.